Saturday, November 28, 2009

Born in Assisi , Italy in 1182, Francis was friendly and pleasure-seeking as a young boy. Once, when a beggar asked for alms from him, he realized life’s poverty and misery. While he gave all his money to the beggar, his friends and own father rebuked him for his charitable act. After sometime, he became very ill for several months until his prayer and vow to serve other people gave way to his miraculous recovery. Notwithstanding his parents’ disapproval and friends’ mockery, he determined to surrender his old ways for God’s service. He became a recluse by living in the hills and meditated for all of two years. While he sometimes received food from sympathizers, he often went hungry. However, he was undaunted since he wanted his body to be under strict discipline and control despite the frequent deprivation of food and water. Francis loved not only the outcasts and the depressed, but also the birds and the beasts, which he treated as he would treat humans. He preached, taught, cured and distributed wealth in all of Italy and encouraged people to follow his example. Soon, the good news of Francis’ love and kindness became renowned in Europe . Before dying in 1228, he was able to organize the Order of Mendicant Friars or Franciscans, who promised a life of poverty, chastity, love and obedience.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Cinema Paradiso’s theme, “Life is not like in the movies,” may be integrated into the following symbolisms: the rusty anchors by the sea which are Toto’s collective force pinning him down in his non-progressing town and the deep blue sea beyond which is an opportunity-rich place that is always farther away sum up Toto’s boring, tragic life, so unlike hopeful, happy-ending movies. Meanwhile, the unwinding yarn knitted by Toto’s mother which is Toto’s untangling opportunity to destroy the past he visited and his gained recovery when he left Giancaldo synthesizes Toto’s life’s unbraided yet flawed self-return and self-rediscovery, so unlike the neatly-wrapped up, crafted movies. Lastly, the demolition of Cinema Paradiso which is a signal for moving on to reality is an anti-thesis for life as a fairy tale, so unlike the fantastic, perpetually ideal movies.Sensing that the projectionist is a frustrated man, I think Alfredo was not right in breaking up Salvatore and Elena’s relationship just because he did not want Salvatore to tread the same fate as he did. Salvatore might have been successful in his career when he left Giancaldo and his girlfriend; nonetheless, his success was bittersweet because his love life was compromised and his jagged, insecure relationships were eventually put at expense. Alfredo had no right to impose on Salvatore the destiny he should fulfill, and for this, I assess that Alfredo is a miserable man desperate for a company in the embodiment of the love-disappointed Salvatore.Teary-eyed Salvatore’s lingering look while watching the collection of kissing scenes is one of longing for a love that never was. There flashed movie scenes of passion that might well have been consummated in his own life, but his life is different from the movies—he was deprived of all romantic opportunities by trading these to the professional victory he savored at the moment. All he could do now was envy the kissing couples because he could have had a girl to exchange kisses with, yet he could not.Compared to Salvatore’s character, Renato’s is, for me, the more sympathetic because he has seen his love Malena at her best and worst, and yet his passion for her did not diminish. While the successful Salvatore still came out a lonely man due to his dejections on love affairs, Renato evolved into a mature man for the love of Malena, despite all those liaisons with other girls. Whereas Salvatore was stuck in the past, Renato moved on by learning lessons on love.I spotted the following symbolisms in Malena: The burning of the ant under the magnifying glass is the personification of Malena and her suffering under the scrutiny of the town. The people made Malena their subject, enslaved by the words people say against her. Eventually just like the ant, she got burned out too. Another is the hair that was Malena’s pride, beauty and life. It was the pride that rendered her formidable against the townsfolk’s scrutiny, the beauty the women of her town envied, and the colorful life she led as a mysterious wife, a reluctant prostitute and a battered victim of women’s wrath. Lastly, Renato’s throwing out into the sea of the record of Malena’s theme song for her husband is indicative of Renato’s letting go of Malena, who left her town in order to save face after her castigation by the women.I think that Malena’s becoming a prostitute is well motivated because her basic need for food is at stake. While it is understood that she has to keep her dignity and morality intact, it was not beyond her to use her charm, albeit reluctantly, in order to feed her stomach and save herself in the process. For women like her who can see no brighter prospects in acquiring daily bread but through selling body, Malena does not meet any reason why she would not go to the proportions of surrendering herself to male objectification in exchange of something to eat. Her character is realistic enough for anyone of us to meet Malena in actual life: she is a human who is willing to shed her dignity and morality if her physical satisfaction is endangered.Of the two movies, Malena touched me more because of the disturbing happenings in Malena’s prostitute life which is somewhat of a contrast with the relative lightness of Salvatore’s twisted love life in Cinema Paradiso. Malena taught me to be humble because I am blessed to have more than what I need while some people like Malena would go as far as be reduced to whoring in order to fill her stomach. Also, it taught me to love unconditionally, like Renato whose love for Malena did not expect to be returned as when the movie ended with his note, “The one I’ll remember is the only one who never asked.”

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Marriage is a term that is not really common to daily conversations. There are just lots of other subjects under the sun to be tackled at length and marriage is perhaps the last to cross the chatters’ minds. Often, this topic is brought up only when two people in love feel that it is already time for them to be joined by their faith with each other. Before this gut feeling occurs, love usually passes by the couple. Hence, my definition of marriage is the occurrence of that certain gut feeling when love passes by.Marriage is compared to many things. Some people compare marriage to a tree that makes the impression of bearing a lot of fruits. Other times, marriage is compared to freshly cooked rice which can be easily spewed out when its hotness scalds the mouth. Sometimes, marriage is compared to Cupid’s arrow hitting two persons at the same time in such a way that they feel mutually bound for each other. For me, marriage is the time and place wherein the best of two families meet in front of God and promise to make this world a better place for each other to live in.Marriage really is a very controversial topic. The few who take it lightly joke that instead of the customary settling for good, the settling turns for bad. More often, people change their mood set when talking about marriage. Usually, they become more serious because marriage is a life-changing phase in the first place. The conversation becomes intense since the life changes involve not one but at least two persons’ lives, not to mention their respective families’ lives. People who get that marrying impression try either to think about their personal virtues and ideals which will be acquainted to the partner way into the married life. Marriage often reveals to the partner the true character of a person he or she swears to stay united to, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.Early marriages are the paths some young loves eventually lead to. Youthful couples who are barely legal fall insanely to intimate passion that they swear to trade anything in the universe for the union of their livers to one another. These days, early trigger of Cupid’s arrow amongst the young ones initiates a decision regarding marriage even if they are not yet ready physically, materially, psychologically, and spiritually. In the heart of young people, they sense that they can really have a fulfilling life already with someone else. They argue that with love in their hearts, their married life heads the direction of bliss, till death do they part.Will love alone lead to a successful marriage?

Monday, November 09, 2009

Before the turn of the twentieth century, shortly right after the military loss of Spain to the United States of America over the colony known before as the Philippine Islands, the U.S. Army established the first public school in the historic Corregidor Island off Bataan Peninsula. Without formal training in teaching, the soldiers nonetheless could be credited for having laid the bricks of the Philippine public school system via teaching English to the natives less than one month after their designation in the archipelago. The first batch of real teachers arrived—all 48 of them—aboard the “Sheridan” to teach not only English but also basic education to the Filipinos.These were the precursors of the teachers called “Thomasites,” who were in turn the forerunners of the present-day U.S. Peace Corps. What these American mentors and those that followed them became known for was the vessel that transported them to the Western end of the Pacific—it was a former cattle ship called USS “Thomas.” Numbering 530 of whom 365 were male and 165 were female, the Thomasites docked at Manila Bay on August 21, 1901 and after two days of quarantine, were permitted to disembark the ship. They were subsequently deployed in provinces as far off as Cagayan, Zambales, Batangas, Masbate, Negros, Cebu and Sulu. Thus began the education that reached beyond the privileged classes in post-Hispanic Philippines.Establishing public schools that attracted the Filipino masses, the Thomasites taught basic education using English as the medium of instruction. The attraction factor was mainly due to the opportunity seen by the underprivileged to become part of the elite once educated. Centuries before, the Spanish priests taught the natives no more than religious prayers and rituals and, rather belatedly, the Spanish language in mid-19th century. The teaching of English was a revolution away from the Spanish-sponsored teaching which was primarily done in the indigenous languages. With the American-sponsored public education, the average Filipino was now capable of attending school and had an equal academic footing with the elite. Effective education of the masses, however, did not come as easily since the pupils tended to attend classes at random and be absent during, say, town and other such festivities. The elementary schools were followed by vocational schools which the American teachers deemed as preparatory institutions for Filipinos pursuing their respective careers. The founding of the country’s only national university, the University of the Philippines, opened to Filipinos further American-sponsored primary courses in the tertiary level.Aside from the more pronounced basic education on English, grammar, reading, mathematics, geography, practical arts and athletics, the American teachers also taught their culture, values and their homegrown style of democracy to the natives. The pioneering batch of the Thomasites was succeeded by other Thomasite missionaries that educated the Filipino people. Those taught by the Thomasites with brilliant academic showing were further honed by being sent to the mainland US as pensionado students. These predecessors of the Fulbright scholars studied in the mother country and then returned to the Philippines to apply what they learned there.The American-sponsored education in the colonial Philippines is an amalgamation of the good, the bad, and the ambiguous. It is good in that the Filipinos were given the chance to study, a fact that was denied to the natives by the Spaniards. It is an accepted truth that education liberates people by the acquisition of empowering knowledge, and with the teaching of the Thomasites, the masses’ dream of upward mobility was closer in reality. Hence, this explains why most Filipinos treat education as a significant element in their lives. Furthermore, the establishment of the public school system in the Philippines was also good since education was not any longer limited to the wealthy or elite classes; rather, it catered to the masses which case advanced the literacy movement in the Philippines. In this light, the American sponsors of this institution brought social change in the Philippine landscape.This very alteration in the Philippine society spawned the bad side of the colonial education under the Americans. The manner in which the Americans taught their homegrown education was such that it planted seeds of Americanization in the minds of the Filipinos. By imbuing American values and culture to the locals, the Thomasites displaced Filipinization that the youth needed to identify themselves with their motherland and, worse, made any other culture as inferior compared to the Americans. This accounts for the lingering “Stateside” mentality among Filipinos whether they actually set foot in the US or they were further corrupted by the imperializing powers of Hollywoodization, McDonaldization and other such neocolonialisms.The ambiguous comes in the form of the Philippines being the third largest English-speaking nation in the whole planet as a result of the American-sponsored education. On the one hand, the proficiency in English comes handy in landing professional positions here and abroad, especially in consideration of the increasingly globalizing world. With English as the dominant language of business and information, how can an Anglophilic Filipino lose? On the other hand, it is this love for the English language that contaminates the Filipinos’ sense of identity, for in the process of placing status symbol in English, the Filipino language languishes in its derision as a mother tongue associated with the bakya or the jologs. This ambiguity places the American-sponsored education in the middle of a tightrope wherein the question of the boon or the bane of this colonial legacy remains a debate among the colonialists and the nativists.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

There are many ways through which I may seize the day. I may do now the things I have been postponing to do or have not been able to do in the past for one reason or another. I want to seize the day by visiting the Philippine countryside. I want to travel to Baguio to experience the cold again without having to go to wintry countries. I also want to go to Boracay to experience the sugar-white beach that bewitches local and foreign tourists. I want to see the amazing rice terraces to feel proud of a world-class Filipino heritage. I likewise want to visit Bohol to marvel at the chocolate hills and the tiny yet adorable tarsier. Seizing the day by seeing the best of the islands is something I have been raring to do, given the chance to pursue my plans. I may also spend quality time with people I rarely keep company to or I want to meet. I want to spend recreation time with my family in any part of the countyside. I also want to spend leisure time with my inang in amusement centers, the way we used to be together years ago. I want to be with my friends for some bonding time at the mall, the way we used to when semestral breaks allow us. I want to meet any national leader and gather tips on how to run country affairs effectively. I likewise want to be with my literary idols in order to learn a thing or two about becoming top-caliber artists. Seizing the day by spending quality time socially is something I ought to do, given the free time for everyone involved. Finally, I may savor the time I have now as if these are the last hours I have on earth. I want to finish my plans of action as is expected of a leader fulfilling his duty. I likewise want to do charity work outside the academe's mission so I may share my personal blesings to the less fortunate. I want to make more friends in order to learn more lives before earth time expires. Lastly, I want to experience playing nonstop, dancing in the rain, or perhaps hiking the mountaintop just to get some baptism of fire. Seizing the day by doing what I intend to do before the world ends is something I look forward to, given the opportunity. Not everyone is lucky to maximize the miracle that's time.

Monday, November 02, 2009

While there are positive implications that may be drawn from genetic counseling, there are also negative ones which consist of the foregoing:Genetic counseling is not advisable since the tests that frequently accompany it is found by consensual researchers to be inaccurate in diagnosing illnesses. For example, genetic counselors may tell a patient that he has a certain disease which gets him the label “at risk” due to a tested gene factor. This will make the patient anxious since uncertainty will loom in the picture. He may not be even told that it is one factor to have an “at risk” gene and another to have the environment to aggravate the prognosis of diseases.Genetic counseling also creates a leeway of false hopes for patients. It does not give any comfort for a patient to know that he will acquire an incurable disease. It does not help in making one live a normal life devoid of pain and suffering. For instance, genetic counselors may tell a patient that they are at risk of getting ill, but not when the disease strikes, how severe the symptoms are, whether the disorder will progress over time or if treatment can still be made. It becomes harder then to have that patient have his children tested if they inherited his illness and will die a young death as he will. Genetic counseling provides a backdrop for a difficulty of having the patient's children know or not know whether they will suffer from a potentially inherited disease. This places excessive accountability on the patient, who may feel his anxiety, anger, frustration, depression, tension and guilt increasing all because of a counseling aftermath. The same feelings may be felt toward family members when information coming from the genetic counseling need to be revealed to them.Whereas an unknowing patient may live long enough to survive a potential disease, a patient who gets advised that he is at risk of acquiring a diease may become psychologically assailed that he will inevitably develop such a disease. When a patient notices this illness, he may eventually heighten the risk. A patient may have a genetic trait that leads to a disease, but this is not a guarantee that the patient will get it. The patient may only have a higher risk if not counseled, but the very act of counseling may put the patient in a psychologically-torturing decision whether to pursue the advise to reduce the risk.Also, genetic counseling can push nature to the limits by rendering science into messing with nature, especially when done the wrong way. To illustrate: parents can be advised by geneticists to abort an unborn fetus if it is discovered to have undesirable features like deformation, disease or maternal threats. Genetic counseling, then, reduces conception down to selective breeding. This may also result to prenatal anxiety that runs the risk of miscarriage because of psychological consequences.In relation to the aforementioned, pregnant women advised by geneticists to have undesirable fetuses may run the risk of being blamed and guilt-ridden for their pregnancy result. The counseling made on them may create a negative impact in such a way that these women will suffer disrupted ties with their family members and community. Also, if they risk to bear their children, the counseling may pose an interference in the bonding of the mothers and children, who may be diagnosed to have disabilities. Meanwhile, genetic counseling may also discover false paternity, which will possibly tear apart marital ties.Likewise, genetic counseling can be disadvantageous to job seekers, as they may suffer employment discrimination. If advised to have the potential of acquiring hereditary diseases which case appears as medical information, the potential employee may not be hired because the company does not want to invest time and money training the person who is predetermined for an illness.Genetic information can also be used by insurance companies against a person. The result of genetic counseling may be used by paying insurance companies to deny coverage to high risk clients. In order to avoid paying for expensive treatments and hospitalizations, insurance companies may use genetic counseling outcome to declare that the client's high risk status is a pre-existing condition.The same information gathered from genetic counseling can create privacy, social stigma and confidentiality issues. There is the question of who may access the information. Many people would not want anyone to see what their genetic makeup looks like. People themselves would be concerned about being counseled on their genetic status. Without intending to, their privacy may be intruded as well as their family's.